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Before closing this chapter, I would like to share
with you some comments from an article printed in
the U.S. News & World Report, In Search of
Jesus, April 8, 1996, page 47-53:

• Robert Funk, a renowned biblical scholar, and
50 religion professors concluded that no more
than 20 percent of the sayings and even fewer
of the deeds attributed to Jesus are authentic.
Among the cast offs: the Lord’s Prayer, the
saying from the cross and any claims of Jesus
to divinity, the virgin birth, most of his
miracles and his bodily resurrection. (Page 49)

• John Meier, a professor at the Catholic
University of America in Washington DC:,
concludes:

* He (Jesus) was born around 7 BC in Nazareth, not
in Bethlehem as the gospel of Luke says.
* Despite official Catholic teaching that Mary, the
mother of Jesus, remained a virgin all of her life,
Meier says Jesus had four brothers and at least two
sisters, details that emerge from the gospels of Mark
and John and from the writings of Paul. The virgin
birth of Jesus, says Meier, “cannot be proven or
disproven” by historical investigation.

* He had a brief ministry in Galilee as a teacher,
prophet and worker of deeds that were perceived by
some as miracles.

* He was arrested in Jerusalem and crucified under
fontius Pilate somewhere around A.D. 30. His
followers claimed he rose from the dead. (Page 50)

• John Crossan, one of the most prolific of the
modem questers, a former Roman Catholic
priest and professor emeritus at Depaul
University in Chicago, thinks the evidence he’s
gathered would rule out most of Christianity’s
traditional teachings. Biblical accounts of the
Last Supper and appearances of the risen Jesus,
he says for example, are merely attempts by his
devout followers to express their “continued
experience” of his presence after the
Crucifixion. (Page 52)